Yes, this is who I was talking about yesterday on the Substack.
Julie Paisley is a film photographer who has been around for quite a while and is well known within the film community. She’s part owner of Hybrid Co., has lead a shootout at WPPI, she leads workshops (she calls them retreats), she sells a ton of shit (online courses, notebooks, cards, vintage books, layflat mats…), and is an author (memoir and a never-actually printed Paris guide). I’m sure there’s things I’ve missed.
Over the weekend someone that booked a photography + mentoring session with her posted in a Facebook Group asking for advice. They’d booked with a prominent photographer and after asking other photographers for advice it was discovered there were a lot of people experiencing a similar issue with this photographer. So they posted to the group and it kind of exploded from there. It was brought to me and I wasn’t sure what I’d do with it at first since she is allegedly battling some health issues.
I posted the story to Substack without naming names and decided that the decision would make itself known to me. As the day progressed I got more and more stories and it became overwhelmingly obvious this isn’t just a couple people having an issue. Then one person turned the tides and I decided to go for it.
There’s a multitude of issues at hand here but overwhelmingly it’s people not getting what they paid for and often not getting refunds.
I have a feeling this is just the tip of the iceberg here. I kind of feel more like I’m on Ocean Gate instead of the Titanic at this point. All I need is a Logitech controller…
The easiest way for me to tell this is via timeline I think. I don’t know. Fuck. Continue beyond the jump and I apologize in advance for the chaos.
Updated 10/9/2024 : Added more stories, added more updates, added more WTF below. It was going to be in the newsletter like it was last week but hot damn, there’s just too much.
It’s been a while since I’ve had a website full of almost all stolen images. There are a few images that I didn’t find sources for but it’s not many.
Since there is *so* much here I am just sticking to sourcing the photographers stolen from that I can find. I also didn’t bother with the stock photos, of which there are dozens. There is SO much that I had to narrow it down somehow.
Also, he used some of these images in his article with Canvas Rebel. He’s a rebel alright… there’s also at least two stock images credited to him in a Medium article he wrote.
There’s also not an insignificant amount of plagiarism at play on the website as well and at least one source of the photos he also took copy from.
It’s worth a look at AEllis’ website to make sure your own work isn’t there as some are collaged and hard to source.
Update 1/12/24 @ 4PM EST:
If you haven’t been on the Facebook Post about this listing, you may want to pop over there first because… it’s giving Billcie vibes.
Then another person that has a history with Ellis came in and posted a link to his Instagram highlight reel on the deep dive he’s done into Ellis and… holy shit. From the terrible interactions with a model (more than one), to him not returning his daughter to the mother on time, to his ex’s restraining order and his eventual probation for beating her friend up shortly before his ex was murdered in a hit-and-run… just a whole lot of WTF.
Ellis has a lot of aliases: Aellis Obtenebrix is what he’s currently going as but he’s also known as Lahlan Rotscreck, Ellis Templar, Jason Bourne (I’m serious), and what his real name appears to be is Ellis Warner. Larry Ellis Campbell Jr.
I’m hoping to pull some of the past screenshots I was sent from his infractions as Seaside Boudoir and add them to the post soon.
Update 2/25/2024 @ 11AM EST:
Well last night I got “served” via email (which isn’t legal in Ohio without consent) by Larry/Ellis.
Since I’m already in the lawsuit, I’m just going to go all in and post everything I’ve got that he’s stolen.
After 7 hours of working on this I’m calling it quits after sourcing around 100 images/text sources from his product photography pages. Tomorrow I’ll dig into the rest.
Update 2/25/2024 @ 11PM EST:
I finished up the boudoir portfolios and in total added 151 new sources to the post and I’m not close to being done. I’ll add more tomorrow.
Update 2/26/2024
I’m bound and determined to finish sourcing all the photos today. I believe this is the most content I’ve ever sourced??
It’s very interesting that many of these images were flipped so that they weren’t easily found by searching online, I had to flip many back to find the original sources for the images.
It’s almost like he did that intentionally…
Update 11/9/2024
If you haven’t been keeping up with the latest via Substack the summary is that the lawsuit is still ongoing, AEllis is currently in jail and he’s still a shithead.
Since I had some time this weekend I decided to go ahead and update the post with the new website, his new names and aliases and the additional stolen images on his current website.
Just in 2024 I’ve found over 250 items on his website and social media that were stolen from another creator – and that’s a low estimate. That doesn’t include the photos he’s stolen when known as Seaside Boudoir which is another massive chunk.
I never have made a comprehensive list of the various business names he’s used/is using so I wanted to add those here.
Seaside Boudoir
Art by D’Artisan
Art Au Naturale
Enchanted Realm Photography
Enchanted Realm Boudoir
Enchanting Shots
Branding Beauty Boudoir
Dark Realm of the Fae
Fae Portraits
Branded Vivid
Vivid Vixens Photography
Vivid Vixen Photo
It appears that at least one client is currently waiting for delivery, this review was left in September.
So, he continues to do great things! Scroll to the bottom for the latest images added to his website that aren’t his.
All I want to do is read Iron Flame but I need to get a Substack out and I had a ton of submissions this weekend so I figure I’ll be ‘good’ and do a bit of work before my engagement session and savor Iron Flame instead of burning through it quickly.
With all that being said…
This is a whole ass mess.
I’d say the fast majority of photos in the Real Estate and Food Gallery are stock photos. I couldn’t find original photographers and I didn’t feel like dealing with the mess of trying to find the unlikely original sources. Every single one I clicked was out there on the internet though – often in dozens of places.
So what is below is what I could find the source for in the portrait galleries. All but one photo that I searched in that gallery had a source elsewhere so if it isn’t here and isn’t the one obvious photo, it’s also probably stock or stolen so often it’s hard to find an original source.
Davide Francese entered a bunch of images into the WPE Awards and apparently they are not all of his original works. Sound familiar? Although it appears with Davide no monetary awards were received.
There’s so many Pinterest photos for when she “doesn’t have time” to use her own images for advertisements. I gave up around summer 2022 but there’s a LOT here.
This wall of shame is dedicated to photographers that feel that it's okay to steal others' work and post it as their own. Oh I'm sorry, it's okay to let their "web designer" do it.
